MS: No new kernel for Windows 7, same requirements as Vista

Microsoft has revealed a little more about Windows 7 today, including the …

Microsoft bloggers and the Microsoft community at large have noticed that Microsoft is being very tight-lipped about Windows 7. In a blog post, Chris Flores of the Windows Client Communications Team explains why this is: "With Windows 7, we're trying to more carefully plan how we share information with our customers and partners. This means sharing the right level of information at the right time depending on the needs of the audience."

In other words, with Windows 7, Microsoft is trying to avoid making promises as much as possible; we all know what happened when the company talked too much about Longhorn, and then delivered a completely different product, Vista, instead. Despite this new PR approach for Windows 7, Microsoft still managed to disclose something interesting today or rather, squash some rumors that have been scuttling around. Back in October, Eric Traut, one of Microsoft's chief operating system design engineers, demonstrated MinWin, a very slimmed down kernel that was expected to be the core of Windows 7.

Now, Microsoft has settled the question of whether or not the operating system would come with a completely new kernel, or simply one that builds on what we already see in Windows Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008: "Contrary to some speculation, Microsoft is not creating a new kernel for Windows 7. Rather, we are refining the kernel architecture and componentization model introduced in Windows Vista," said Flores. He went on to say: "one of our design goals for Windows 7 is that it will run on the recommended hardware we specified for Windows Vista and that the applications and devices that work with Windows Vista will be compatible with Windows 7."

Microsoft has again noted that Windows 7 is still on track to be released 3 years after the general availability of Windows Vista. I've got my fingers crossed, but I'm trying to keep my hopes low as the builds are just too early in development.